Archive for the divination Category

I’m jumping on the bandwagon. I have a new favorite tarot. Well, not new — really quite old, but given a coat of polish. It’s the Yoav Ben-Dov version of the Conver tarot, a very famous, very popular Marseilles deck. Ben-Dov has cleaned up the lines, brightened the colors, but left the mystery and wood-cut style intact. This is a deck that practically reads itself.

Even if you’re not interested particularly in the Marseilles style decks, this book has a lot of clear, good insight.

There are still things to love about the Rider Waite, but if you’re looking for a fresh, less Golden Dawn-y take on the cards, you can’t do better than the Marseilles decks, and Yoav Ben-Dov’s version is the best I’ve seen.

You can buy his deck here. When I bought it, at least, it had to ship from Israel, but was surprisingly fast.

My book on Lenormand is now available, and I thought I’d give you some idea of why I find Lenormand so much fun.

I, probably like you, come from Lenormand from tarot. But Lenormand isn’t tarot. It’s a system of 36 simple cards, each with a clear symbolic image, and you read them not necessarily based on position but on their relationship with each other.

You know how I feel about symbols, so it shouldn’t be a mystery why this appeals to me.

Let me give you an example. To emphasize the universal nature of Lenormand, instead of showing you cards in these examples, I’ll just give you images, such as might appear on a card. If you want your own deck, Lo Scarabeo publishes a nice one.

Take this image, forgetting that it’s a Lenormand card for a moment:

What do you imagine that this image means? Yes, you’re right: whatever you said, you’re probably right. A key opens things. It gives access. It is also metaphorically the important thing, right? The key concept?

When you see a key, what do you think? You’re digging through your junk drawer and you pull out a key; what is the first question you ask yourself? “What does this go to?” What’s it a key to? Imagine you get, then, this image in response to that question:

What’s a tower? It’s a high place, where you can see a long way. It’s a kind of defense, but it’s also a place where important people live. It’s a public place, a place of authority and elevation.

So if I ask: “Will I get the promotion?” and I get the key followed by the tower, what do you think that means? Those people above me will give me a key, yes? I’ll get the key to elevation. If I ask, “how is my relationship going?” what do you think that combo means? Could it mean “opening up to new perspectives”? I think it could.

I love the Lenormand because it simple, clear, but not simplistic. And, for those of us who read the tarot, it offers a new and helpful perspective, which I talk about in my book.

The authors introduce several useful concepts and ideas, such as the concept of L-Space, which they contrast with T-Space. All this means is that we get in a certain mental state to read the tarot, and a slightly different state to read the Lenormand. They are not tarot cards, and that’s a useful thing to point out and reinforce.

Their discussion of meaning is also worthwhile, even though it seems to have annoyed some readers who demand not just “one card = one meaning” precision, but also that one meaning has to match the one they have decided is “traditional.” The truth of the matter is, the Lenormand has a wide range of traditions, and the very earliest instructions that came with the Game of Hope (eventually renamed Lenormand) simply tell the reader to create “a jocular tale” (Katz & Tali, 253), with no precise instruction on how to do so. Presumably, the card meanings were to be somewhat obvious (and, of course, as Katz & Tali point out, the penalties and rewards in the original game offer some clues, as they sometimes come with what we now call “flavor text,” such as with 21-Mountain: “On these steep Alps, the player has to remain until another arrives to release him or he has to cast a double” (251)).

The authors do offer their own meanings and techniques, and are careful to mark them as such. The reader is free to adopt to ignore those meanings. I for one cannot make 2-Clover mean “identity” in my head no matter how hard I try, but the authors do not force me to.

The instructions for reading are designed in lesson form, to some degree, so that later work builds on earlier work in a clever way. It’s worth doing the exercises in order because suddenly, toward the end of the book, you find that you already need all the skills necessary for the grand tableau, the traditional spread using all 36 cards. The authors also invent some new ways to use the cards — again, no doubt annoying some hard-core traditionalists, but not me.

There are some errors in the discussion of metaphor, where they say that E-prime is a way of speaking that avoids “is,” but then give as an example a sentence containing a being-verb: “As an example, I could have said, ‘the idea is straightforward,’ but I said ‘the idea can be considered . . . ‘” (44). This isn’t actually E-prime, because “be” is a verb of being. One way of stating this idea in E-prime would have been — well, probably not to say it at all, which is the point. In E-prime, you wouldn’t even cast the judgment on the straightforwardness of the idea . . . Anyway. This error is minor and doesn’t undermine their point. In addition, the distinction between metaphor and simile strikes me as important (ah, see, E-prime) but the authors leave it a bit muddy and don’t really elaborate as much as I might like. But then, metaphor is one of my favorite areas of study.

There are a couple brief places (especially in the chapter on Houses) where the description or explanation might be a bit clearer, but those muddy bits clear up once you put a deck in your hand and play with it. This is a book that requires actual practical practice with the cards.

The history section is absolutely excellent.

Overall, I recommend this book to add to your growing library of Lenormand books. It is growing, right? It’s an exciting time for those of us interested in this weird little deck!

My next book is a bit of a departure for me, although not entirely. As you know, I can’t stop thinking about the nature of symbols, and so divination systems are a natural area of interest for me. One particular system, a set of thirty-six cards called the Lenormand, began interesting me several years ago. I immediately began to learn all I could, which at the time wasn’t much, because most books were in German or French. However, I did manage to find some resources in languages I could read and then, like a good ol’ American mutt, I rolled up my sleeves and started working with the cards.

Like most Americans, I’m more familiar with the tarot, so of course I tried to compare the cards to the tarot. In doing so, I found a way in to the cards that I think is unique, and so — like all lunatics — when I find something unique I immediately want to write a book about it!

And I did, and it’s coming out in July.

I imagine it might raise a few hackles. I know there are staunch traditionalists among Lenormand readers, and I know they may not like my approach — which bows to tradition but recognizes that those traditions are multiple. I’m also a magician, so I look at this from the perspective of my magical practice, which might be a completely unique perspective on these fascinating cards. I’m hoping those hackles don’t get too spiky, though, because I’m friendly to tradition and if anything, I think my book is about the willingness to learn and explore.

There are also several other books on the Lenormand coming out in coming months (or just come out!) and I will review them as I get my eager hands on them. I’m very excited for the whole field of Lenormand in America now, and I hope you, like me, will snap up every darned book on the topic you can get. Including mine.